Chapter 13. Localization

Often developers approach the building and deployment of their Web applications in their native language and then, as the audience for the application expands, they realize they need to globalize the application. Of course, the ideal is to build the Web application to handle an international audience right from the start — but, in many cases, this may not be possible because of the extra work it requires.

It is good to note that with the ASP.NET 3.5 Framework, a considerable effort has been made to address the internationalization of Web applications. You quickly realize that changes to the API, the addition of capabilities to the server controls, and even Visual Studio itself equip you to do the extra work required to bring your application to an international audience more easily.

As an ASP.NET developer, you might be well aware of the ways in which you can work with localization in the applications that you develop, but before the introduction of ASP.NET AJAX, all your localization was focused on what you could do on the server side of your application. AJAX introduces complexity with localization in that you now have to be concerned with how the JavaScript on your page changes the end application that also works with the localization of the application you desire.

This chapter looks at some of the important items to consider when building your Web applications on the server side and the client side, starting off with an introduction on what it takes to localize your applications overall.